It's Mac's grandfather, a Vietnam veteran, who takes the role of a father figure, helping Mac channel his emotions into protests and activism as he does and creating a positive outlet for Mac's blunt and preachy tendencies. A constant need to fight the ills he sees makes Mac file his emotions away without processing them, from his developing crush on his friend Marci to his complicated relationship with his largely absent, mentally unstable father. For the community-focused premise, though, this is largely a character-driven story about Mac embracing healthy expressions for anger and fear. King frames the conversation about censorship around institutional abuse of power, based on a real example from her town in which Yolen's books were censored. When she assigns Jane Yolen's The Devil's Arithmetic in class but hands out copies of the book with black rectangles covering passages she deems inappropriate, socially-conscious Mac and his friends decide it's time to protest. Sett, has become notorious in their small Pennsylvania town for her moral crusades, which include pushing for stricter curfews, stringent dress codes, and identical house colors.
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